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12/17/2018 11:00 PMThe question was “What should Madison do with the old Academy School?” and clearly residents had a lot of thoughts on the matter. Polling on the issue is now complete and residents took their opportunity to participate seriously—the online poll garnered 2,000 responses, the maximum number allowed.
The poll was conducted by GreatBlue Research, the firm that has been working with the Academy Building Guidance Committee (ABGC) over the past several months. GreatBlue amassed 10,000 phone numbers for Madison residents—for both landlines and cell phones—and called until it logged 400 responses for a statistically significant result during the week of Nov. 26.
The online poll went live on Dec. 3. After just one day, the poll garnered 605 responses and as of Dec. 10, 1,378 people had filled out the poll according to ABGC Chair Henry Griggs. The poll was set to run through Dec. 16, but hit the 2,000 maximum participation cap early.
“The online poll hit its maximum over the weekend with 2,000 respondents,” he said. “That is a very strong response and shows one, interest is high, and two, the word got out.”
There had been some concern residents might have been confused over how long the survey would be live after First Selectman Tom Banisch’s column in this paper on Dec. 13 indicated the online poll was complete. Despite concerns, data shows residents continued to take the survey.
The survey was available on the town website. Now that polling is complete, GreatBlue will deliver a report to the committee and the Board of Selectmen (BOS) in January. ABGC will then make a recommendation to the BOS and then the BOS what question might appear before the public at referendum.
To learn more about Academy, the poll, and review prior articles, photos, and a video, visit Zip06.com’s new page dedicated to Academy at www.zip06.com/academy.
The Academy Dilemma in Brief
The Academy School building has been vacant for more than a decade and multiple administrations have struggled to find a popular solution for the building and its lot.
The parcel is 5.1 acres, in the historic district, and in the R-2 Residential Zone, which allows for single-family residential, municipal, educational, recreational, and religious uses. The building itself is 53,000 square feet with three floors, 16 classrooms, a gym, theater, kitchen, cafeteria, and music rooms. The building is also on the National Register of Historic places, which means there is a risk of litigation if the building is demolished.
The BOS established the ABGC earlier this year after the public pushed back on private development options presented in February. The committee has been meeting weekly over the past several months to tease out feasible private development options and public/community uses for the building. The private options are, for the most part, scaled-down versions of development options the public first saw, and quickly balked at, in February. Of the four private development options, none use the land behind the structure, focusing on building-only proposals.
The three public or community options include turning the building into a community center, moving town offices back downtown into Academy, or leveling the building and keeping the open space for a park. All public options would come at a cost to the taxpayer.